Mystery

“Learning to Swim” by Sara J. Henry, Crown, 289 pages, $24. Sara J. Henry has written a tremendous debut novel. Troy Chance, a freelance writer, is on a ferry on Lake Champlain. She is standing by herself and notices another ferry going past. A small child falls from the back of the other ferry. Without hesitation, she dives in to save the child. The ferries don’t stop. As she rescues the little boy, she realizes that a large sweatshirt is tying back his arms.

“The Inferno” by Dan Brown, Doubleday, 462 pages, $29.95. Harvard professor of symbology Robert Langdon is back in this fast-moving thriller. He awakes in a hospital. He has a head wound and doesn't remember the last 36 hours. Langdon had a dream about a veiled woman. Dr. Sienna Brooks comes in. Langdon thinks he is in Massachusetts, but is in Florence, Italy. When another doctor is shot by someone trying to kidnap Langdon, Brooks helps him flee the hospital. A metal cylinder hidden in his jacket leads them on a scavenger hunt throughout Florence for a stolen death mask of Dante Alighieri, who wrote “The Divine Comedy.” Inferno is the underworld as described in his epic poem.

"Garment of Shadows" by Laurie R. King, Bantam, 288 pages, $26. This takes up the story where "Pirate King" left off. Mary Russell and her husband Sherlock Holmes are in Morocco. Mary was last seen walking off into the desert with a child. Holmes is searching for her. When he finds her, she has suffered a head injury and has amnesia. This is the latest in a series of novels set in the Middle East. I wish Russell and Holmes would get back to England. These stories aren't as good as the early novels.

“This Body of Death” by Elizabeth George, Harper, 704 pages, $28.99. Scotland Yard Detective Inspector Thomas Lynley is still on compassionate leave after the murder of his wife, Helen, who was pregnant with their son. Isabelle Ardery is heading the department in his absence. Right after Ardery begins working, the body of Jemima Hastings is found in London. Arderly asks Lynley to help in the investigation. She hopes he will ease her way into the job permanently.

"The Boy in the Suitcase" by Lene Kaaberbol and Agnete Friis, Soho Crime, 320 pages, $24. Since the success of the late Swedish writer Stieg Larrson's trilogy, novels set in the Netherlands have been popular. This is the latest. Nina Borg, Red Cross nurse, wife, mother and compulsive "do-gooder," is asked by her friend, Karin, to take care of something she left in a public locker. Nina finds a drugged 3-year-old boy whose name is Mikas. Karin is then murdered. Nina doesn't know who to trust.

Daily American Staff Writer Long-time readers of Tony Hillerman's stories set in the Southwest have waited for the wedding of Hopi police Sgt. Jim Chee and border patrol officer Bernie Manuelito. It finally comes, but not before a mystery is solved in "Skeleton Man" (HarperCollins, 241 pages, $25.95). Joe Leaphorn, a former Navajo tribal police lieutenant, isn't happy with retirement. When he's asked to help investigate a mystery, he's glad to get involved. In 1956, two airplanes collided over the cliffs of the Grand Canyon and everybody on board was killed.

Hillcrest Grangers and their friends are invited to join in the mystery night program by meeting at 7 p.m. today in the parking lot outside the Berlin Brothersvalley High School Agriculture Department. The group will depart from their for a mystery destination. Doyle and Donna Paul are coordinating the event.

Somerset The masons have often been an organization shrouded in mystery and suspicion since they were first made known as a secret organization. ?The Lost Symbol? by Dan Brown explores this mysterious realm. Much controversy exists over this well-known author and many have chosen to label him as ?anti-Christian.? Although Brown is by any means pro-religious, no evidence exists that he tries to lead people away from their religions in any of his books. ?The Lost Symbol? follows the same pattern.

“Pirate King” by Laurie R. King, Bantam, 300 pages, $25. This is the 11th in the series featuring Mary Russell and her husband Sherlock Holmes. It is 1924 and Mary Russell is asked by Scotland Yard to investigate possible criminal activity with Randolph Fflytte's movie studio and that a secretary for the company disappeared. She gets an undercover job as an assistant to the producers. Russell soon finds that she is in charge of 13 young actresses on a ship - and she gets seasick.

"The Bookman's Tale" by Charlie Lovett, Viking, 368 pages, $27.95. Peter Byerly sells antique books. He lives in North Carolina, but has a cottage in England because he travels there frequently to purchase books. His wife, Amanda, died six months earlier. Peter is in a book store in England, looking at a book about Shakespeare forgery theories, and a small portrait falls out. It is a watercolor of a woman, definitely painted about 100 years ago, and he is shocked.

One of the world's most mysterious insects is about to invade the skies over wooded areas in eastern Pennsylvania and other states, but an expert in Penn State's College of Agricultural Sciences says it's not a cause for alarm. Residents of 17 Pennsylvania counties soon will see an emergence of periodical cicadas, commonly but mistakenly called 17-year locusts. "We think of them as the Methuselah of the insect world," said Gregory Hoover, senior extension associate in entomology.

“The Inferno” by Dan Brown, Doubleday, 462 pages, $29.95. Harvard professor of symbology Robert Langdon is back in this fast-moving thriller. He awakes in a hospital. He has a head wound and doesn't remember the last 36 hours. Langdon had a dream about a veiled woman. Dr. Sienna Brooks comes in. Langdon thinks he is in Massachusetts, but is in Florence, Italy. When another doctor is shot by someone trying to kidnap Langdon, Brooks helps him flee the hospital. A metal cylinder hidden in his jacket leads them on a scavenger hunt throughout Florence for a stolen death mask of Dante Alighieri, who wrote “The Divine Comedy.” Inferno is the underworld as described in his epic poem.

"The Missing File" by D.A. Mishani, Harper, 287 pages, $25.99. Detective Avraham Avraham is a police officer in Holon, near Tel Aviv, Israel. It is a quiet area without much crime. One day a woman comes in to the station. Her son, Ofer Sharabi, 16, left for school that morning and didn't return. She learned that he didn't arrive at school. Avraham thinks Ofer has just skipped school for the day and that he will return that evening. He is wrong. Ze'ev Avni, Ofer's neighbor and English tutor, offers information and tries to insert himself in the investigation.

"The Sound of Broken Glass" by Deborah Crombie, William Morrow, 384 pages, $25.99. Duncan Kincaid and Gemma James are both Scotland Yard detective inspectors. They have three children, the youngest of whom is a foster child. Since James has a new job, Kincaid is staying home with their new daughter. James is called to a homicide in an area of South London known as Crystal Palace. Vincent Arnott, a lawyer, has been murdered in a seedy hotel. Police first believe that it is a robbery gone wrong.

"A Cold and Lonely Place" by Sara J. Henry, Crown, 304 pages, $24. Freelance writer Troy Chance lives at Lake Placid. She is photographing an ice-cutting machine at the lake. Men are building an ice palace for a winter festival. The work stops suddenly when the workers see a body under the ice. As the ice is moved away from the body, Troy realizes she knows who it is. Tobin Winslow is dead. He was dating Jessamy Field, one of Troy's housemates. A year earlier Troy rescued a child from drowning, so she knows a police detective in Ottawa.

Although the late Helen Caton did an astounding amount of community work in her small town of Meyersdale, her contribution in the beginning of the annual murder mystery cannot be forgotten this time of year especially. Caton died Jan. 4 at the age of 61 after a series of strokes. Her life's work was to be there whenever help was needed in Meyersdale - from the hospital to the Catholic church to the food pantry, with both the old and young alike. This year in February the Meyersdale Medical Center Auxiliary Players will present its 13th annual murder mystery at the firehall and Caton can be given credit for helping to start this fundraising tradition.

It seems that in every four-year election cycle a mysterious surprise usually shows up to confound the voter, as we ask what happened? We could go way back to the first election until now and point out many surprises that confounded the voter, but let's begin with some of the up to date surprises. First surprise: Harry Truman [1948] where Dewey thought he already won the election, and all the newspapers printed him as the winner, before the election was over! But papers were wrong.

"Bones Are Forever" by Kathy Reichs, Scribner, 288 pages, $26.99. A woman calling herself Amy Roberts checks into a Montreal hospital with uncontrolled bleeding. Doctors find she recently gave birth. She disappears. When police go to the address she gave the hospital, they find the body of an infant. Forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan is called to assist. Then two additional infants bodies are found. Her old flame Detective Andrew Ryan is heading the investigation.

"Garment of Shadows" by Laurie R. King, Bantam, 288 pages, $26. This takes up the story where "Pirate King" left off. Mary Russell and her husband Sherlock Holmes are in Morocco. Mary was last seen walking off into the desert with a child. Holmes is searching for her. When he finds her, she has suffered a head injury and has amnesia. This is the latest in a series of novels set in the Middle East. I wish Russell and Holmes would get back to England. These stories aren't as good as the early novels.